Selection of Curriculum Area, Grade Level, and Rationale


I am using British Columbia's curriculum and have selected Health and Career Education Grade 6 as my subject and grade level.

The major prescribed learning outcomes for Health and Career Education for Grade 6 in British Columbia are:

• 6.1 Goals and Decisions
• 6.2 Career Development
• 6.3 Health

6.1 Goals and Decisions

General Outcome
This curriculum organizer provides opportunities for students to develop the skills that will allow them to take increasing responsibility for their decisions and to understand the consequences of those decisions and includes (Health and Career Education Grade 6 IRP, p. 12):

• goal setting
• decision making
• support networks and sources of information and support in the school community

Specific Outcomes:

• describe planning techniques that can help to support goal attainment (e.g., time management, setting priorities, considering costs and resources)
• identify influences on goal setting and decision making, including family, peer, and media influences

6.2 Career Development

General Outcome
This organizer is designed to develop students' awareness of personal attributes, skills, and successes, and how these relate to their schoolwork, their co-curricular activities, and potential careers and includes the following topics (Health and Career Education Grade 6 IRP, p. 12):

• personal attributes (e.g., skills, interests, accomplishments), including work habits and transferable skills; relating attributes to school, activities, and potential careers
• work and jobs, and ways of classifying them

Specific Outcomes

• relate personal attributes to various types of work
• describe transferable skills that are developed through school and recreational activities (e.g., teamwork, organization, creativity)

6.3 Health

This organizer provides opportunities for students to gain the knowledge necessary for developing and maintaining a healthy and safe lifestyle and includes the following topics, arranged by suborganizer (Health and Career Education Grade 6 IRP, p. 12):

• Healthy Living - promoting physical and emotional health (including regular physical and emotional health (including regular physical activity, emotional health strategies, healthy eating, and disease prevention), puberty, reproduction
• Healthy Relationships - caring and supportive behaviours in families, friendships, emotions, interpersonal skills, and recognizing and responding to bullying, stereotyping, and discrimination
• Safety and Injury Prevention - recognizing, avoiding, and responding to potentially unsafe situations at home, at school, on the road, in the community, and on the Internet, including situations of potential abuse or exploitation
• Substance Misuse Prevention - unsafe substances, influences, consequences, and strategies for avoiding and refusing substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs

Specific Outcomes:
Healthy Living

• describe the benefits of attaining and maintaining a balanced, healthy lifestyle, including the benefits of

– being physically active
– healthy eating practices
– an emotionally healthy lifestyle

• describe the human reproductive system
• demonstrate an understanding of the importance of respecting own and others’ development rates during puberty and adolescence
• identify practices that reduce the risk of contracting life-threatening communicable diseases, including HIV, hepatitis B and C, and meningococcal C

Healthy Relationships

• assess the influence that peers have on individuals’ attitudes and behaviour
• demonstrate an understanding of the harmful effects of stereotyping and discrimination
• identify school, local, provincial, national, and international strategies for preventing and responding to discrimination, stereotyping, and bullying
• apply appropriate strategies for responding to discrimination, stereotyping, and bullying

Safety and Injury Prevention

• identify sources of support for people in abusive or exploitative situations (e.g., trusted adult, school and community services)
• identify personal safety strategies to avoid abusive or exploitative situations on the Internet
• describe responsible safety behaviours on the road and in the community
• identify basic principles for responding to emergencies (e.g., following safety guidelines, having an emergency response plan, knowing how to get help)

Substance Misuse Prevention

• demonstrate appropriate skills related to the prevention of the use of tobacco, alcohol, or other drugs (e.g., assertiveness, refusal skills, avoidance, choosing healthy alternatives)
• describe the potential consequences for themselves and others if they use tobacco, alcohol, or other drugs (e.g., altered judgment and decision making, addiction, potential harm to fetus)

Rationale

Health and Career Education is an area of the curriculum that isn’t viewed as a priority in schools. I must admit that I also believed this in the past. My experiences in teaching around this age group has given me strong evidence that we must pay more attention in the areas Health and Career Education. It still amazes me to see students who are unable to manage their time or make informed decisions and have a fantasy view of life. I believe that many of the problems faced in the content areas could be solved if we taught the students the life skills they need to function academically and socially.

In most schools in British Columbia that has a elementary and secondary school system, I believe Grade 6 is the preparation year: mentally, physically, and socially for these students. Mentally these students will have to become more independent as they will no longer have a main classroom/homeroom teacher. As a result, they will be responsible for making more decisions, managing their time, and setting goals. Physically the students are beginning to enter puberty and need to be informed about the changes occurring to their bodies and the opposite sex. Also, they need to have the information to help them make decisions about eating healthy food choices and the effects of substance use. Finally, emotionally students need to learn skills that will help the interact appropriately with their peers, adults, and different situations.

I chose this Grade because I am very interested in working with students from Grades 5-7. In Grade 6, I think the students are in a very important transitional stage of their life as students move from being the influential students in the elementary school to the influenced in high school. This is an important year to be given time management and decision making skills as they begin a more independent phase of their life. Introducing these skills in Grade 6 will give them a year in Grade 7 to evaluate, experiment, and transition with these issues in a safe environment.

There will be many pressures and it is important that the students be given the skills to evaluate the potential positive and harmful and consequences for themselves and others in order that they can make an informed decision and not one based on peer pressure or potential false information from different sources. Finally, research has shown that a healthy living that includes a balance of physical activity, healthy eating, and emotional health results in better concentration and academic performance.


Health and Career Education Grade 6